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Wanderings in the world of imagination | page 1, 2
At this point the story begins to feel like an M.C. Escher print, where right in front of you familiar things are turning into something eerily unfamiliar. This is the pattern of many of Yourgrau's brief tales, and I was enchanted by them: the account of a vacation in a well shaft, or of an excursion to view man-eating monsters, or of a journey on a tramp freighter that is tantalizingly not at all what it seems. My favorite tales in the book begin with exotic but utterly believable traveler's scenes -- like the safari in "Pouches," the sampan and pagoda journey in "Silk" or the hotel robbery in "Break-In." For a moment or two you can easily place yourself in the same scene; then everything begins to tilt, and suddenly you're on a wild ride, where all the logic and learning you've brought to the trip are suddenly rendered useless. The wonderful irony, of course, is that this is precisely what happens to travelers in far-off places (and sometimes not so far-off places) in the real world. You arrive somewhere with all the expectations and preconceptions you've brought from your youth, only to find that the people you're among have grown up with entirely different expectations and preconceptions. They drive on the wrong side of the road. They eat insects. They don't believe in individual initiative. They worship a toenail or a tree. This is ultimately what I love about Yourgrau's inventions. Not only do they evocatively embody the allure of the exotic, they also manifest principles central to the wanderer's life: There are no set rules or boundaries, reality is capricious, anything is possible, the fantastic can intersect the actual at any time. Not all the 44 pieces in "Haunted Traveller" are as strong and successful as the ones excerpted here. And in fact, I think that reading the book straight through, as I did, does the tales a disservice. The twists in theme and style become dulled a bit by repetition -- better to savor these spicy stories a few at a time. But taken as a whole, "Haunted Traveller" is an enlightening delight. Yourgrau's Borgesian tales teach me all over again why I travel: to be surprised and tantalized, to see the world with newly opened eyes.
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